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Before a large audience of investigative journalists, Marcela Turati spoke of how reporters have risked their lives and died covering the drug war raging in Mexico.

“Many journalists tried to speak out, but they were silenced,” Turati said. “And they are still trying.”

Turati, a reporter from the Mexican news magazine Proceso, was the keynote speaker Saturday at the Investigative Reporters & Editors 2013 conference at the San Antonio Marriott Rivercenter hotel.

She is a recipient of the Louis M. Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism and the author of “Fuego Cruzado: Las Victimas Atrapadas en la Guerra del Narco,” or “Crossfire: Victims Trapped in the Narco-War.”

Her speech brought the crowd members to their feet to applaud at the luncheon, which also featured journalists being awarded for their investigative works in 2012.

Inside the packed ballroom, Turati said there's a need for American journalists to write about the massacres, rapes and thousands of missing people that is happening “less than three hours away” from San Antonio.

She spoke about reporters who were slain trying to expose corruption in a country that had become a battlefield. She talked about how drug traffickers threatened reporters, causing some to flee to the United States only to earn wages for doing menial work.

Also, she told of how of how the violence has affected the psyche of targeted journalists: One asked a friend for a pistol to kill himself rather than face a torture squad. Another reporter kissed his family members in their sleep and waited in his living room to be taken away by assailants.

IRE President David Cay Johnston said Turati's speech was a warning to Americans that if the nation continues down the current path, it's a matter of time before warfare reaches “the streets of Texas, Arizona, California and eventually other parts of this country.”

He said the profits from the drug war are so enormous that it corrupts police, judges and entire governments.

“This woman literally put her life at risk today by speaking to us truths that have gotten at least 140 Mexicans killed or disappeared,” Johnston said.

IRE, a nonprofit organization, was formed in 1975 to create a forum where journalists around the world could support each other by sharing resources, ideas and newsgathering techniques. More than 1,200 people registered for the conference, co-hosted by the San Antonio Express-News.

Turati said people who've tried to use social media or recording devices to document shootings also have been targeted. She implored the audience to understand that the need wasn't just about helping journalists across the border, but also helping themselves.

“Help us from here to publish what, there, we can't even find,” she said. “Don't abandon us.”